Pint report

This month has seen many high-profile beer events in the New Orleans area. In addition to the inaugural Louisiana Craft Brewer Week (Sept. 23-29), The Avenue Pub's participation in the worldwide Zwanze tapping Sept. 14 brought a very rare beer to a very appreciative audience. Pub owner Polly Watts confirmed that she and her staff served more than 2,500 glasses of beer during the event, and the excellent selection of rare sours and lambics rivaled the special Zwanze beer itself.

Concurrent with Louisiana Craft Brewer Week, the Avenue Pub also is hosting several other opportunities with out-of-state brewers. After the Mon., Sept. 23 release of Swamp Grape Escape, the NOLA Brewing-New Belgium collaboration beer, Sierra Nevada will be supplying several hard-to-find beers in its portfolio Tue., Sept. 24 — including Hopjacked Pale Ale, Flip Side Red and Narwhal Stout. New York's Ommegang Brewery also will be present that night to premiere its second Game of Thrones-inspired beer, Take the Black Stout.

Thu., Sept. 26 will bring Greg Koch, cofounder and owner of Stone Brewing. Koch will bring beers that are extremely rare to find outside San Diego, such as vertical tastings (the same style of beer brewed in different years) of Old Guardian, Imperial Russian Stout and Belgo. During this tap takeover, there may be some surprises as well, such as tastings of Tiger Paw Saison and Grapefruit Slam Ruination.

On Friday, Sept. 27, Laurie Salazar, the Director of Sours and New Belgium's Barrel Aged program, will bring a wide variety of past and present sour and barrel-aged beer from New Belgium's "Lips of Faith" beer series. In addition to beers already available like the Pluot, Coconut Curry Hefe and La Folie, she also will pour Cocoa Mole, Transatlantique Kriek, and NBB Loves Leopold aged in Leopold Blackberry Whiskey Barrels. Salazar also has promised additional treats for sour beer lovers.